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#utterly indulgent domestic nonsense
terrainofheartfelt · 3 years
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This is her life. The thought still kind of stuns her from time to time.
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prose-for-hire · 3 years
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An impassioned debate
Pairing: Giles x Spike (”platonic” but they’re arguing lol)
Request: Spike & Giles bicker fest a la missing moments from when they were housemates, please?
Requested by: @staycalmandbeafan 
Warning: Sex references.
A/N: Sometimes when I write I assume the attitude of one of the characters. Therefore, Spike doesn’t always appear in a good light lol (It was fun to write though and I got a little carried away sorry) 💜🖤
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Giles liked to live alone.
He had grown up living with his parents. He had roommates in university. He even flat-shared in the communal house him and the friends he hung around at the time broke into and claimed as their own in his early twenties.
And that, is exactly how Giles knew he liked to live alone. Some days he could barely tolerate the young people that no matter how fond of them he was, would go on about pointless and often arbitrary nonsense in his presence.
His home then, became his sanctuary. A place where he could shut out the world.
That was until one fateful day in the all-too recent past. Thanksgiving day. A day where the Americans gave thanks for the parts of their lives they are grateful for. He thought he ought to partake in tradition and suggested how grateful he was for Buffy and the others.
A silent, more self-indulgent thanks was to the peace and quiet he would get at the end of the day. His house to himself, not shackled by parents. Kept up all hours by housemates or forced into copious amounts of overly emotional performance at the hands of the well-intentioned Americans.
This silent thought was shattered as a thud at the door announced an unwelcome visitor.
That’s how Giles ended up with a new houseguest. The vampire chained to his tub. A tub he had been very fond of until Spike had come in and ruined with his stench. He was probably the only person that smelt this bad after spending this amount of time in the bathtub.
It would be fair to say that Giles hadn’t been a very welcoming host, but to put it in context, despite being ‘harmless’ Spike had tried to bite Giles not once, but twice. Upon the first attempt being a near-miss and the second ending in blinding pain for the corpse-faced lunatic, he had the gall to tell Giles that he would taste like a dried up old prune anyway.
There was also the incident on Thanksgiving day itself where he managed to eat half a plate of cookies before anyone had the chance to stop him. A miraculous feat when you note that his hands and feet were bound tight.
These were, for the most part issues that Giles could look past. Especially now he was sure that Spike was unable to actually harm him. But what he couldn’t get past were, well, every other area that involved living with Spike.
The issues could be divided as such: Eating habits; sleeping habits; general depravity and what one could only describe as ‘The Passions debate’.
We should probably begin with the sleeping habits:
Or lack thereof. Spike was cat-like in the sense that he didn’t usually get a full night’s, or days, sleep. He tended to sleep a couple hours here or there seemingly whenever he pleased. Which meant that when he was tied up after dark, the vampire had a whole lot of thoughts and nowhere else to go so he seemingly spoke them out loud.
Giles tossed and turned in his bed desperately clinging to sleep, able for the most part to ignore the constant babbling of Spike’s innermost thoughts. Which actually amounted to shagged someone, shagged someone oh I drank some blood, shagged someone.
It was utterly mind numbing and Giles was beginning to feel that should he ever get out of this arrangement alive he would look into finding a house in the middle of a deserted island. Never to return to civilisation.
Giles managed to mostly ignore the fanged menace. Until the singing started. Or, what Giles would only call tuneless hollering. He butchered every punk song known to man and some surprisingly sugary pop ballads that Giles wouldn’t dare comment on, less he revealed that he himself knew the songs lyrics too.
He actually started singing to pass the time, it was lyrical to begin with but as the night wore on he started to shout the words, the tune lost. Sacrificed to a greater goal. Irritation.
He grinned when Giles padded downstairs to try to silence the din.
“Alright, Rupert? Here for dinner and a show?”
“I’m going to gag you” Giles warned. Something they had already had numerous arguments over.
“Well, you’re really gonna have to take me out to that dinner then” Spike smirked at Giles’ disdain for his words, moving his head slightly at the man’s reaction.
“Will you shut up! For God’s sake, man, be quiet!” Giles shouted, sleep-deprivation and living with someone that had more fangs than brains made him more and more irate. It made Spike smile even further, his next words making Giles about three seconds from throttling him (which, wouldn’t have killed him but it would have been very satisfying for Giles).
“Well, seein’ as you’re awake and all and got nothing better to do, be a love and get me some blood?” Spike cackled. Giles stopped himself from going near Spike and instead trailed to the kitchen, hoping it would at least shut him up for five minutes.
Which brings us nicely along to eating habits:
“I like a bit of texture in it!” Spike had shouted one morning. His blood was steaming but Giles had returned back into the kitchen with it to add something to try and get a moment’s peace.
He had been playing a very enjoyable game of see how many times he can send the same mug of blood back before Giles realised he was only doing it to annoy him. The highest score had been 3 times and only, in Giles’ defence, because the man hadn’t been properly awake that morning.
Giles had hit Spike twice (which was very tame considering the horror that was a feral vampire that wasn’t used to being in a domestic setting). Once because of the aforementioned incident and the second time after a particularly heated debate that we will discuss later.
Spike had been lounging on the sofa again, getting crumbs all over his chair. Giles swung his feet and made him sit up as he spoke.
“Will you bloody-”
“Oh don’t start conjuring those sweet massacres in my mind, Rupes, makes a fella’s hunger unbearable” He rubbed his stomach that did in fact appear to be gurgling at the mere mention of the word.
Spike, when he was allowed out of his restraints and Giles saw it was too much like hard work to be waiting on Spike all of the time, began to make his own meals. Which, really, just created more of a mess. And a distinct lack of Weetabix around the house.
He created the worst combinations known to man, sometimes to annoy Giles and other times to just see how it went. He sprayed cans of whipped cream in his mouth left over from Thanksgiving, ate crackers with every topping he found in the house and made sure to use the least amount of manners as possible whilst doing so.
Which brings us onto the section Giles would entitle, Spike’s ‘generally depraved character’:
Giles was still in the habit of tying Spike up at night, but he had subsequently allowed him to walk around in the day after a while.
There had been one evening where Spike ran through the entire house, struggling at every turn so that Giles couldn’t tie him up again. He was bored and it was fun making the human chase him. Eventually he was cuffed and tied to his chair and left there through the day so that it didn’t happen again.
Luckily, Spike had gotten bored of that game and just let Giles tie him up at night again now. Not without comment, of course.
“Call that a knot? I’ve had tighter curls, mate” Spike rolled his eyes as Giles looked over the glasses perching on the end of his nose. He then reached and tightened the knot by a lot making Spike yelp and scowl at him.
“Hey! You can’t just leave me like this – I’m getting’ rope burn here!” he shouted as he struggled, thus giving himself worse rope burn.
“Ah, yes and what’re you going to do about it, Spike, hm? Serenade me to death?” Giles rolled his eyes in disdain. He rolled his shoulders, adjusting his position with a scowl stamped on his face. 
He watched Giles get back to reading his paper. He let him get a few lines in before he interrupted him this time.
“Not exactly the five star digs I’m used to” Spike said which made Giles scoff. He had seen many of the places Spike had called home and none of them were fit for burying a corpse in let alone housing a living one.
“I can untie you and you can just leave, Spike, I’m sure burning to a crisp would really show me what for” Giles muttered, focusing on the paper he had been trying to read.
“Oh, I see you. Thinking you’re better than me – smarter. Anyone can read books, they don’t make it their whole sodding personality. You’re a good ol’ British stereotype, Rupes,”
“Ah, yes, well, many people can read Spike but it takes a particularly impervious individual to be so oblivious to their own misgivings that they result in insulting themselves in the same breath as their foe”
Spike rolled his eyes at the use of the word ‘foe’ but kept silent for a while. It was a rare silence and Giles made the most of it. Savoured it. He wasn’t sure if it was the big words that had evaded him or just the fact that his insult had resonated. But he didn’t say these thoughts out loud, less he would have to listen to Spike’s sparkling wit.
However, lo and behold, Spike suddenly spoke up again. 
“You know what I miss?” Spike asked, leaving Giles sighing audibly and putting his unread book back down. He had tried several times to read the same line.
“No, but I assume that you’re about to enlighten me”
“Civil wars”
“What?!” Giles asked incredulously, taking his glasses from his face just so he didn’t have to look at the vampire who appeared to be staring up at the ceiling and reminiscing.
“Yeah” No nodded, “There’s just something about a civil war… could be the fear. Aphrodisiac, it is”
“I’m not sure I agree-”
“Probably ‘cause you’d be the one doing the fearing you great ponce”
“Now-” Giles was ready to launch into a barrage of insults, using all of his wit to ground Spike into the pile of dust and ash he was destined to be. But then, he took a breath. He decided to hit Spike where it hurt, “That’s it! No more television”
“What?!” Spike shouted, his eyes bulging in horror, “You can’t do that, I’m dyin’ here gramps-!”
“You’re already dead”
“Yeah, well, now I’m rotting away here with the living. I mean, you’ve aged – I saw your graduation photo in the hall. It’s like lookin’ in a particularly haunting mirror when I see you” Spike spoke smugly of the way his face hadn’t aged despite being older than Giles.
There was a stony silence for a while. Giles went quiet. When Giles went quiet, he was mad. The kind that could become insidious. His fists curled and his mind raced. Blood pumping hot around his body.
But, after a moment, he resolved himself. Spike wasn’t worth Ripper making an appearance. No, Spike wasn’t worth anything.
“Why don’t you read something, or perhaps figure out how to count past two?” Giles offered, stepping away from where the tv was now staying off. Spike’s face turned sour at the prospect of another afternoon with his thoughts.
“How about four?” Spike asked, flipping the v’s with both arms raised at the man who looked like he was about to thump his guest yet again.
“You’re a piece of work, Spike”
“Thanks” Spike nodded, still looking at Giles expectantly, waiting for the television to be turned back on. But when he turned way and started to look busy Spike’s mood changed.
“Come on, it’s telly time!” Spike shouted but Giles just took his jacket and left the house for the rest of the day. Leaving Spike bored and trying to avoid the patches of sunlight where Giles had ‘accidentally’ opened some of the curtains on different levels of the house.
When Giles eventually began to turn the television back on for Spike, it leads us on to ‘The Passions debate’:
“Are you blind willingly or are you truly this ignorant?!” Giles shouted, his words directed at Spike but his eyes were glued to the screen. No matter how much he had fought it, Giles had been well and truly sucked into the fictional world.
“Don’t be a bloody idiot! It’s clear as sodding day that they’re meant to be together” Spike gestured wildly at the screen.
“Their relationship is forced – there is no real meaning there!” Giles insisted, much like most shows on television in his opinion.
“You got it all wrong - it’s fate, destiny or any of that bollocks”
“Ah, yes, that would be the latter”
“Don’t be daft, Ripper – have you seen them?! Pure chemistry. Nobody can act that good either, they’re shagging behind the scenes – mark my words”
“You really are as perceptive as a wooden spoon, Spike” Giles berated him.
“That’s rot, that is! They’re shagging no two ways about it”
“Two people can have chemistry and maintain a platonic relationship” Spike raised an eyebrow at him and Giles had become heated in the debate, “They are not bloody shagging!”
“Aw, does it bother you that fictional characters are getting more action than you?” Spike mock-pouted. Trying to rile the man up further. This was where it descended into chaos.
“Ah, fortunately I’m satisfied in the knowledge that there will always be someone that is worse-off than myself” Giles paused before asking, “Is Drusilla well?”
“Bugger off! That was low for an ex-watcher who gets all his happy feelings from a group of school children” Spike pounced on him, going for the jugular, “You spend an embarrassing amount of time with dear Buffy. I wonder, what could you be doin’ behind closed-”
Spike was cut off by a blow to his face. It sent him flying backwards and splintered the wooden chair he had been sat on into pieces.
“Out!” Giles demanded, face like thunder, “Out before I do something I wouldn’t regret!”
Both Spike and Giles eyed the weapons chest that was on the floor between them before looking back at the other. Both were trying to calculate how long it would take the other to get there. After a moment, Spike got to his feet and just slinked off to a different corner of the house until he got hungry and Giles went to walk off his anger.
That had been the last straw. Soon after this particular incident, Spike was shipped off the Xander’s basement. Giles finally got his house back. His wooden chair however, unfortunately never recovered.
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pheedraws · 4 years
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I got tagged in this ultimate OTP meme a while ago and this has been sitting in my drafts since because I am, at my core, indecisive. It also means I can’t remember who tagged me so my apologies! I could not sleep at all last night so I finally finished it off ... voila 
Disagreements:
Who is more likely to raise their voice?
They both try to keep things low-key, especially if others are within earshot, but they are also incredibly stubborn and won’t back down from an argument if they think they are right so things can often get loud.
Who threatens to leave but never actually does?
Neither of them. They’ve both had enough people walk out on them in the past that they wouldn’t threaten the other with that in the heat of the moment, regardless of the argument.
Who actually keeps their word and leaves?
As above. At the very most, one of them will go somewhere to cool off for a few hours but that’s the extent of that.
Who trashes the house?
Neither of them. Billy has the shorter temper of the two but that’s not his style.
Do either of them get physical?
Never.
How often do they argue/disagree?
Hoo boy. After Billy breaks things off mere days before they lose Maria and the kids? Dee can’t stand to be in the same room as him without fighting. Billy plays along, after all he needed the dispute to seem real so Rawlins would drop Dee as a potential pawn to use against him (thus keeping her safe), but the part of him he buried deep down hates seeing her hurt and angry. Doesn’t stop him from landing a few cutting jabs every now and then, though…
Post-S1? Not a lot. It takes them a while to work through things after Rawlins’ death and Billy’s pardoning, eventually getting back to how things were in the ‘good old days’. All the previous grievances just seem petty in comparison and thus arguments are few and far between. When they do get back together? It’s all small domestic things, the most common argument being Billy trying to get Dee to just slow down and stop working herself to the bone.
Who is the first to apologise?
Usually Billy. (He is usually the one in the wrong, so…)
Sex:
Who is on top?
More often than not Billy, though he certainly has no qualms against sitting back and making Dee work for it from time to time.
Who is on the bottom?
Mostly Dee, with exceptions of course. (She can top Billy every so often, as a treat)
Who has the strangest desires?
I wouldn’t say either of them have particularly strange desires, but their sex life is never boring. Let’s leave it at that.
Any kinks?
Too damn many. Dee more so than Billy, which he fucking loves.
Who’s dominant in bed?
Almost always Billy. Even when Dee’s on top, he’s still the one in control.
Is head ever in the equation?
Absolutely.
If so, who is better at performing it?
Billy’s an incredibly confident and smug man, both in life and in the bedroom. Is it justified? Wholly.
Ever had sex in public?
…Yes.
They just had to break in the newly refurbished head office at Anvil, after all…
Who moans the most?
They both get pretty vocal in their own ways. For Billy, it’s a lot of guttural moans and ‘fuck’s. In Dee’s case? Well, Billy doesn’t rest until she’s screaming loud enough that all her neighbors know him by name…
Who leaves the most marks?
Billy. He’d never push Dee past her limits or seriously hurt her, but he does get a little... carried away in the moment.
Dee loves it though.
Who’s the more experienced of the two?
Again, Billy.
Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?
In the early days it was almost exclusively fucking. They had a friends-with-benefits situation going on that didn’t leave room for the feelings they both refused to acknowledge.
Post-S1, when everything is back on track and positive? It’s a healthy mix of the two.
Rough or soft?
Again, a healthy mix of the two.
How long do they usually last?
Billy has the stamina of a superhuman. Whether it’s fucking or making love, you can bet your ass he’s making it last until Dee is fully spent.
Is protection used?
Yes. They’re both too busy to consider the, ahem, alternative right now.
Does it ever get boring?
With Billy Russo? Never.
Where is the strangest place they’ve have sex?
An elevator.
Heathens.
Family:
Do they plan on having children/or have children?
That is… a complicated topic. After losing Lisa and Frank Jr., Dee was kind of put off the idea of starting a family with anyone. Billy has his own reservations about kids and parenthood too, given his own history. Plus post-S1, with both of them working hard towards getting Anvil re-established? There isn’t time for that.
Neither of them completely rule out future possibilities, though.
If so, how many children do they want/have?
Neither have given it much thought, in all honesty.
Affection:
Who likes to cuddle?
They are both partial to a good cuddle on the sofa or in bed, particularly after a long day.
Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?
B I L L Y. That man’s randiness is second to none.
Who struggles to keep their hands to themselves?
As above, Billy. It isn’t always inherently sexual, though; he uses touch as an affirmation more so than words, so he’ll make a point of brushing loose hairs out of Dee’s face, or sliding his arms around her waist whenever he can. He’s finally at a stage in his life where he can afford to be soft and affectionate, so naturally he wants to make the most of it.
How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?
Depends on the situation. Both of them are borderline workaholics, so staying still for anything longer than half an hour during the day just doesn’t sit well with them and they’ll take themselves off to get back to work. If they fall asleep in each other’s arms, though? You best believe they’ll still be entwined when morning comes.
Who gives the most kisses?
Dee’s the smoocher of the pair, always has been, though Billy has taken to planting a kiss on her forehead when her brows knit together while working to ease the tension there.
What is their favourite non-sexual activity?
Their secret indulgence is sacking off work on a Friday night to order pizza and drink beer while watching some dumb movie neither are really interested in. Sometimes they invite the others over, but more often than not it’s just their night to breathe and enjoy each other’s company.
Dee will adamantly deny that she almost always falls asleep during the movie, though…
Where is their favourite place to cuddle?
Billy spared no expense when decorating his penthouse, so the sofa and bed are simply to die for. In the end that’s what spurs Dee to move in with him, lest she have to listen to him complain about her brick of a sofa one more time…
How often do they get time to themselves?
Not as often as they’d like. Later on down the line, when Dee leaves her clinic behind, they both work at Anvil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have more time to themselves. It’s busy, especially in the wake of the Rawlins fiasco, but things settle down eventually. They take those moments to themselves whenever they can.
Sleeping:
Who snores?
Mercifully, neither of them do.
If both do, who snores the loudest?
While neither of them snore, Dee talks utter nonsense in her sleep, which Billy then teases her for relentlessly.
Do they share a bed or sleep separately?
Always share a bed. Sleep doesn’t come easy to Dee, but having Billy beside her helps.
If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?
They’ll cozy up as they fall asleep. More often than not they’ll wake up like that too, though Dee has been known to shift into some utterly nonsensical positions that would make a chiropractor cry.
What do they wear to bed? If they’re together?
Dee sleeps in a vest and shorts all year round.
Billy? Just underwear, unless previously removed before falling asleep …
Are either of them insomniacs?
Dee is a chronic insomniac and workaholic. While they’re in the middle of their break-up, can’t-stand-the-sight-of-each-other phase, Dee works through the night until she physically can’t stay awake any longer; anything to avoid the tossing and turning and overthinking that awaits her in bed. Things get better after Rawlins is dealt with and Billy is back in the picture, but it’s still a struggle for her at times.
Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?
Dee tried them once. They don’t work.
Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?
A little bit of both. Dee likes feeling Billy there with her so will tangle herself up in his arms and legs when she can, but if it’s hot? Stuff that. There’s nothing Dee hates more than feeling hot and smothered.
Who wakes up with bed hair?
Dee, and she will forever be bitter that Billy I’m-So-Perfect Russo can wake up looking like a damn model regardless of the antics they got up to the night before.
Who wakes up first?
If Dee had a fitful night of sleep, she’ll be up and out of bed at the earliest reasonable hour. On a normal day, Billy will wake up first.
Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?
They usually just grab breakfast on the way to work, but if it’s a weekend or a special occasion? Billy is known to surprise her with breakfast in bed.
What’s their favourite sleeping position?
Billy on his back with Dee against his side, her head in the crook of his neck.
Do they set an alarm each night?
Billy doesn’t need one; perks of being a marine, and all. If they need to be up at a certain time, he’ll wake Dee up himself… sometimes in creative ways.
Can a television be found in their bedroom?
No. Billy never had one in his bedroom when he lived alone, and Dee wasn’t fussed either way.
Who has nightmares?
They both have their demons, so nightmares are a frequent occurrence. There’s a shared sense of comfort there, though; the pair always knowing what the other needs when they awake with a start, sheen of sweat on their body. The nightmares don’t follow them into the waking world anymore.
Who has ridiculous dreams?
Dee. And she’ll mutter and talk in her sleep the whole time.
Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?
Surprisingly, Billy. While he’s kept many of his old sleeping habits from his days in the marines, he just can’t resist sprawling out in a big, fancy bed these days.
Who makes the bed?
They’re both neat people, so the general unspoken rule is whoever was last out of bed in the morning makes it.
What time is bed time?
It varies. They do try to have a healthy work-life balance, but Anvil is Billy’s pride and joy; if he needs to stay late working, he’ll do it without complaint. They’ll usually collapse into bed any time between 11PM and 2AM.
Any routines/rituals before bed?
Regular things; showering, brushing teeth, etc. If they haven’t seen much of each other all day they’ll lay awake chatting for a while, catching up on news and such. If Dee is going through a particularly bad stint of insomnia, she’ll work out in the evening to try and quell some of the restless feelings, and Billy has taken to joining her.
Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?
Dee. Billy is insufferably smug and cheerful on a morning.  
Work:
Who is the busiest?
It varies. When Dee is working at the clinic, she’s working constantly. Where Frank goes, trouble is never far behind, and thus there’s never a quiet moment without a bullet wound to patch up or regular patient to see to. After she decides to call it quits and work for Anvil with Frank, Billy and Curtis, her workload decreases a bit. Though she may be the resident medic, Billy has a lot more work and responsibilities being at the top of the chain in that scenario.
Who rakes in the highest income?
Mr Billy Bigshot-CEO Russo
Are any of them unemployed?
No.
Who takes the most sick days?
Dee is very much of the ‘work until you drop’ ethic, and while the same can be said about Billy too in some respects, he’s more lenient with himself and will take a day off when he really needs it. He’ll also bribe encourage Dee to do the same when it’s evident she needs a break.
And I mean hey, what’s the point in owning your own company if you can’t take a cheeky sick day off every now and then?
Who is more likely to turn up late to work?
They travel together (technically live in the same damn building as their offices) so they really have no excuse. For the most part it all runs smoothly, but there are occasions where their ….. morning activities….. overrun, though Dee is adamant that you can never actually be late if you turn up with the boss; everyone else is just there early.  
Who sucks up to their boss?
Billy is technically Dee’s boss so…. go figure.
What are their jobs?          
After leaving the military, Dee establishes a small clinic in Hell’s Kitchen and works out of there for a few years. It’s met with a lot of resistance, what with her helping Frank out and getting involved in his grievances with local gangs. Eventually, post-S1 and after an arson attack leaves the clinic worse for wear, Dee decides to take up Billy’s offer of working for Anvil alongside Curtis on the medical team.
Billy still owns and runs Anvil, only with his friends by his side this time. It takes some time for the company’s reputation to recover, even after the truth about Rawlins comes out and Billy is exonerated, but he doesn’t mind the work. It makes it feel like his company again.
Who stresses the most?
They both have a knack for stressing and worrying, but Dee comes out on top in this regard. Maria always used to joke that she’d end up with frown lines by the time she’s thirty.
Do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?
They do. Billy has an immense sense of pride in his work now, and it’s therapeutic for him to work through the mess Rawlins made and reclaim Anvil as his.
Dee loves helping people, always has, so her work suits her.
Are they financially stable?
They are.
Home:
Who does the washing?
They’ll take it in turns for the most part. Both are incredibly neat people so household work is a breeze.
Who takes out the trash?
They’ll usually do it on the way to work, though if it’s cold outside and they have nowhere to be? Billy’s the one to take one for the team.
Who does the ironing?
Billy took one look at the way Dee irons shirts and forbid her from going near an iron again.
Who does the cooking?
Cooking is something they love to do together. It’s a chance for them to unwind and chat and laugh with each other after long working days, so it’s never a chore for them. If a few glasses of wine just happen to be drank during the process, too… well… they deserve it.
Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?
They’re both pretty competent cooks.
Who is messier?
Neither is particularly messy, per se. Dee will say she’s not untidy and call her chaotic desk ‘organized clutter’, but that’s usually limited to her workspaces. The penthouse itself is almost always clean and tidy.
Who leaves the toilet roll empty?
Neither, because they are not heathens… in this regard, at least.
Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?
If Billy is tired, he’ll just strip wherever is convenient and deal with the clothes in the morning. Dee at least makes the extra effort to hang things up or, at the very least, drape it over a chair.
Who forgets to flush the toilet?
They’re both pretty good for remembering that.
Who is the prankster around the house?
Dee has more of a sense of humor than Billy, but that’s not to say Billy doesn’t act like an utter asshole at times when he sees the opportunity.
Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?
Dee doesn’t have a car (she can drive, there’s just not much use for one in the city) so she’s exempt.
I feel like Billy’s car keys are permanently attached to his person. He drives a Wraith, after all.
Who mows the lawn?
Lawn? What’s that?
(Not having a garden is the one thing Dee doesn’t particularly like about city living, though)
Who answers the telephone?
Each has their own mobile, so they deal with their own calls and such.
Who does the vacuuming?
Like with most housework, they’ll take it in turns. Dee refuses to hoover stairs, though, on the grounds that she doesn’t have a death wish.
Who does the groceries?
It depends on whoever has the least amount of work to do on that particular day. Billy quickly catches on to Dee’s confectionary-buying ways, though, so he’ll volunteer to do the shopping more often than not to save their pantry from yet more sugar.
Who takes the longest to shower?
With both of them having served tours overseas, they’re used to showering quickly and effectively. If they’re in the shower together, though? All notions of saving water are out the window.
Who spends the most time in the bathroom?
Billy. Russo. That man has a morning beauty routine to rival any model.
Miscellaneous:
Is money a problem?
Nope!
How many cars do they own?
One.
Do they own their home or do they rent?
Billy owns the penthouse. Prior to moving in with him, Dee used to rent an apartment in the city.
Do they live in the city or in the country?
New York, New York, baby!
Do they enjoy their surroundings?
Both grew up in city environments, so New York just feels like home to them. I think after everything they’ve been through, both individually and together, anywhere else would just feel…. Boring?
What’s their song?
Green Grass by Tom Waits
What do they do when they’re away from each other?
If Billy is away with work, they call or skype whenever they can. They’ve spent unwanted time apart in the past, on particularly bad terms to boot, so they don’t like being away from each other for extended periods.
Where did they first meet?
Dee practically grew up with Maria; the two had been nigh on inseparable since the day they met in elementary school, and formed a sisterly bond that carried on way into adulthood. Dee was already going through basic training when Maria introduced her to Frank, who then brought Billy along to the group a couple of weeks later. The two swiftly became close friends, and dabbled in a bit of the ol friends-with-benefits arrangement when off duty.
Who spends the most money when out shopping?
Billy is more willing to spend money, but he rarely goes out shopping for himself; it’s either something to boost Anvil’s status or capabilities, or something for the penthouse. Dee grew up lacking the financial cushion they have today, so old habits die hard in her case. She won’t buy things for herself unless she really needs something, and even then it takes a lot of internal debating to reach that point.
Who finds it amusing when the other trips over?
Dee is fairly clumsy, much to her dismay (and Billy’s apparent enjoyment).
Any mental issues?
Hoo boy. Billy is an entire essay in his own right so I’ll focus on Dee, though a lot of their mental troubles overlap. Dee left the military after a mission in Iraq under Schoonover went awry, landing the unit in a hostage situation with only Dee and the Major managing to survive two weeks until they were extracted. She was initially given leave to recover and recuperate with intentions of returning to duty, but she decided against it and was discharged. Dee was later diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the incident. Add to that the later trauma of losing Maria, her lifelong best friend and practically her sister, as well as Lisa and Frank Jr.? The woman went through a lot in an incredibly short space of time and it took its toll on her both mentally and physically.
(I’m missing a lot but alas I have not slept and cannot write a coherent paragraph)
Who’s terrified of bugs?
Dee point-blank refuses to be in the same room as a spider. She knows it’s a bit pathetic, but frankly? She doesn’t really care. Other bugs are fine, just no creepy crawlies inside, please.
Who kills the spiders around the house?
As mentioned above, Dee will not touch a single spider so it’s down to Billy to be the hero and remove them from the building.
Their favourite place?
New York City apartments don’t have much in the way of gardens, but the rooftop terrace on the penthouse quickly became their favourite spot once it was given a bit of TLC. Dee has a few planters for growing flowers and herbs for the kitchen, and Billy surprised her one night with a firepit perfect for huddling around as the sun goes down. It’s like a little safe haven away from the stressful jobs and business below them.
Who pays the bills?
They both contribute, Dee was very insistent on that when she moved in, though Billy offered otherwise.
Do they have any fears for the future?
Plenty. Billy still doubts himself, still judges himself by his past mistakes and actions and worries that one day, everything he holds dear will eventually crumble before him again, only this time he won’t be able to pick up the pieces. He keeps these fears to himself, but Dee can tell when those thoughts are giving him grief, and is always there to offer words of reassurance.
Dee worries about Frank. Her elder brother almost; the one constant in her life over the tumultuous years. She worries that one day, this life they’ve all rebuilt together won’t be enough for him, that he’ll miss what made him him, miss the violence and vengeance. And she gets it, to an extent. She lived that life too after Maria and the kids passed, helping him and getting her hands dirty in ways that meant they’ll never be clean again. But she’s settled now, here, with Billy and Frank and Curtis. She just worries the peace she found won’t last.
Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?
Billy, most definitely. He has expensive tastes to begin with and is fairly spontaneous in nature; he’ll often call Dee at work to announce that they’re going out mere hours in advance. It brings him joy to do things for others.
Who’s the tallest?
Billy. He’ll tease Dee about it from time to time, but really? He loves the way he can press his lips to her forehead when she’s in his arms.
Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?
While they both love showering together and, ahem, other more scandalous antics, it’s usually Billy who initiates and slips into the shower behind Dee as opposed to the other way around because for Christ sake Billy shower at a reasonable hour who willingly gets up at 5:30 every morning
Who wanders around in their underwear?
Dee, though Billy has been known to join the underwear party when he a. hungover b. exhausted or c. too damn warm.
Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?
Dee, and while she can indeed sing, she gets so much more joy out of seeing Billy’s grimace whenever she purposefully butchers a song.
What do they tease each other about?
Dee pokes fun at Billy’s hair and how goddamn perfect it is all the time. She’s also taken to lovingly ruffling it up a tad when they’re at home, though that often ends with either her being hoisted over his shoulder or tickled relentlessly…
Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?
They both dress fairly smartly on a day to day basis, taking pride in their appearance and the way they present themselves to the world. There is one exception, however, and that is when Dee insists on lounging around the penthouse that god awful “I Got A Dig Bick” tee Frank gifted Billy during one of Anvil’s annual jokey Secret Santa exchanges. Each time he sees it in the laundry basket he tries his best to dispose of it, but that thing just keeps on making its way back into the wardrobe...
Do they have mutual friends?
They do! Frank and Curtis being the main two, with Karen being more of a mutual acquaintance for Billy, who missed out on a lot while stuck working for Rawlins.
Who crushed first?
There was a mutual attraction there which ultimately spurned the whole friends-with-benefits situation, but Dee was the first to start getting actual Feelings.
Any alcohol or substance related problems?
None.
Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk,  at 3 am?
If they’re out drinking that late, they’re most likely out together. Dee’s accent gets stronger when she’s drunk, which Billy finds hilarious. Coincidentally, he also finds everything funny when shitfaced drunk. Naturally, they make quite the pair...
Who swears the most?
Dee swears like a sailor, at any minor inconvenience. Dropped something? Oh fuck off. Minor inconvenience? Bastard. Billy blames it on being exposed to Frank Castle at an early age, which earns a fuck you from them both.
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turtle-paced · 5 years
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Revisiting Chapters: Arya II, AGoT
This recap is also on my wordpress.
The story so far…
A step back from the politics of King’s Landing, Arya Stark’s having trouble with relocating, and with the events of the journey.
Dangerous Things
This chapter is relatable in the worst way. What we’ve got here is a homesick, grieving kid, missing her brothers, not getting along with her sister, and trying to deal with the fact that her father’s a fallible human being. I would go so far as to say that most readers can probably remember working through a few of the items on that list.
We start out by bringing the changes to the Stark domestic situation into sharp focus when Ned comes in miserable and cranky from work and promptly gets into conflict with his daughters. Sansa’s sitting as far away from Arya as she can manage without getting outright told off for it. Not that that helps.
“I don’t care about their stupid tourney,” Arya said. She knew Prince Joffrey would be there, and she hated Prince Joffrey.
Sansa lifted her head. “It will be a splendid event. You shan’t be wanted.”
When Ned snaps at the girls over this, Arya tears up at the table. What we get then shows just how much Arya’s social situation has changed:
No one talked to Arya. She didn’t care. She liked it that way. She would have eaten her meals alone in her bedchamber if they let her. Sometimes they did […]. The rest of the time, they ate in [Ned’s] solar, just him and her and Sansa. That was when Arya missed her brothers most. She wanted to tease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. She wanted Jon to muss up her hair and call her ‘little sister’ and finish her sentences with her. But all of them were gone. She had no one left but Sansa, and Sansa wouldn’t even talk to her unless Father made her.
No Stark does well separated from the rest. (Not even Sansa, though that realisation will come later.) Here, though, we see that Arya’s even separating herself from her usual pursuits of talking to everyone and anyone. She reminisces over the loss of Ned’s usual practice of inviting people from the household to eat with them, and goes on to how much she likes listening to the men on the benches. And now? Now she’s thinking that she’d rather eat in her room alone? Arya is not in a good place. Not at all.
They’d been her friends, she’d felt safe around them, but now she knew that was a lie. They’d let the queen kill Lady, that was horrible enough, but then the Hound found Mycah.
Needless to say, this is a pretty goddamned traumatic thing for someone to go through. Arya feels sicker and sicker. The importance of keeping track of these food descriptions comes up here as Arya’s grief renders her unable to enjoy her food. She shuts herself into her room and we see another aspect of the problem – Arya blames herself.
She went to the window seat and sat there, sniffling, hating them all, and herself most of all. It was all her fault, everything bad that had happened. It was all her fault, Sansa said so, and Jeyne too.
Whatever Sansa meant, and however Sansa herself is feeling, the effect of her words and behaviour of Arya is pretty well undeniable. There are some problems in the Stark household that needed a bit more parental attention – especially in this situation. Arya gets that attention in the back half of the chapter, as Ned explains that it was not her fault.
“No, sweet one,” he murmered. “Grieve for your friend, but never blame yourself. You did not kill the butcher’s boy. That murder lies at the Hound’s door, him and the cruel woman he serves.”
Ned goes further, when Arya vents some of her other feelings.
“I hate them,” Arya confided, red-faced, sniffling. “The Hound and the queen and the king and Prince Joffrey. I hate all of them. Joffrey lied, it wasn’t the way he said. I hate Sansa too. She did remember, she just lied so Joffrey would like her.”
“We all lie,” her father said.
Ned’s firm, here – Sandor and Cersei are to blame for Mycah’s murder. Arya is not. Sansa is not, in spite of the fact she lied about what she remembered (and his words here would indicate that he believes Sansa lied). The people who decided to kill Mycah and then actually carried it out are responsible for Mycah’s death, not the children who could not see what their actions may or may not have led to. (When discussing the handling of the incident at Darry, it’s important to remember that Robert and Ned were happy to leave discipline at “you speak to your kid, I’ll handle mine,” and it’s Cersei who insisted on violence. Related, it’s also important to remember that Robert’s idea of appropriate discipline for Joffrey’s threats against another human being is a talking-to.) This leads into the lie that Arya told about Nymeria, and Ned honestly explaining what he can to his daughter.
Mostly, the explanation is “this is serious, Arya,  serious serious,” but being treated in a more adult fashion gets through to Arya. Ned emphasises their house words and the true strength of House Stark in a way that Arya will rely on and emulate herself through the following books:
“When the snows fall and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.”
This is going to end up even more important than Ned knows, as the winter that’s coming is worse than he thinks. Nevertheless, being treated as though she has a valuable part to play in the family’s affairs gets through to Arya, putting her behaviour in context for her.
“We have come to a dark dangerous place, child. This is not Winterfell. We have enemies who mean us ill. We cannot fight a war among outrselves. This wilfulness of yours, the runningg off,  the angry words, the disobedience…at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up.”
“I will,” Arya vowed. She had never loved him as much as she did in that instant. “I can be strong too. I can be as strong as Robb.”
Sure enough, the next morning, she’s well enough to apologise to Septa Mordane for shouting and running off. Whatever Septa Mordane herself thinks of it, on Arya’s part, she’s working hard.
Needlework
When Arya is feeling low, she takes Needle out of her clothes chest for comfort, and that’s when Ned gains entry into her room. Itself, it poses a reminder of Mycah’s death, but it also reminds her of Jon who gave it to her in the first place. She and Ned conflict about whether she should have Needle at all, but he can’t bring himself to break it, and in the end he decides that Arya is mature enough to keep the blade. Arya’s declaration that she wouldn’t fight with her sister so much in order to not sabotage the family’s efforts to fight their actual enemies, combined with a genuine apology to Septa Mordane, results in Ned not just allowing Arya to keep the blade, but finding a teacher for her.
This solves one of the more immediate problems where Arya is utterly miserable, with no channel for her energies or her passions. Syrio Forel works Arya hard, and just like that, a lot of Arya’s day-to-day issues vanish.
There are also longer-term things here, though. Just as Ned accepted Arya’s anger and grief over Mycah’s death, and told her those feelings were fine, Syrio Forel also accepts something important about Arya.
Arya took her right hand off the grip and wiped her sweaty palm on her pants. She held the sword in her left hand. He seemed to approve. “The left is good. All is reversed, it will make your enemies more awkward.”
For what seems to be one of the first times in the course of her education, Arya’s allowed to hse the hand she’s strongest with. We also get to see a hint of Arya’s skill when she immediately  catches onto the logic behind the stance Syrio has her take up.
He clicked his teeth together. “Just so, that is the grip. You are not holding a battle-axe, you are holding a -”
“- needle,” Arya finished for him, fiercely.
There’s one thing, though – Syrio seems to miss the fact that Arya’s femininity is important to her. When he misgenders her, she doesn’t correct him, she objects to being called a boy.
Parents as People
The other thing thing this chapter does, especially in hindsight, is show us Ned (and Ned’s trauma) from an outside PoV. He’s the first person we see in this chapter, and the first thing we learn is that he was fighting with the Small Council again. We never learn what he was fighting with them about. We do see him bring his own view home and misunderstand his daughters.
“Will we be permitted to go, Father?”
“You know my feelings, Sansa. It seems I must arrange Robert’s games and pretend to be honoured for his sake. That does not mean I must subject my daughters to this folly.”
He snaps at Sansa and Arya and doesn’t stick around for dinner. Arya’s misery is increased by the realisation that her father is not flawless and all powerful.
And no one had raised a voice or drawn a blade or anything, not Harwin who always talked so bold, or Alyn who was going to be a knight, or Jory who was captain of the guard. Not even her father.
As important a part of Arya’s maturity as this is, recognising that her father cannot make everything better, it’s no less painful for her.
Readers also see that Ned’s very much a product of his society, in some ways.
He looked down gravely at the sword in his hands. “This is no toy for children, least of all for a girl.”
[…]
“I don’t want to be a lady!” Arya flared.
“I ought to snap this toy over my knee here and now, and put an end to this nonsense.”
As much as Ned loves Arya, and as much as Arya loves Ned, he does have those gendered expectations for her. However, he’s also willing to indulge her to a point. Ned’s inconsistent enforcement of ladylike standards of behaviour is rooted in what he briefly mentions to Arya now (and she notes that Ned does not often speak about his dead siblings and father).
“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. […]
“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”
Ned links Lyanna’s “wild” behaviour to her early death. As such, he’s not keen on allowing his own daughter to repeat what he sees as Lyanna’s mistakes.
When Arya breaks down sobbing in his arms, Ned also gives us a line that sticks out a bit on reread. I’ve quoted it already, but here it is again:
“We all lie,” her father said.
This gets elaborated on later, when Arya asks whether it was right to lie about where Nymeria had gone.
“It was right,” her father said. “And even the lie was…not without honour.”
Arya doesn’t know – and neither does the first-time unspoiled reader – that Ned has told lies before. Lies with their own honour. Ned speaks with the voice of experience.
There’s also something here that becomes noticeable in its absence, later. Ned handles Arya well in this scene, within his own limitations. We have every indication that Ned did not talk Sansathrough his incident and attempt to address her issues as he assists Arya in this scene. Again, this is painfully realistic. Arya is visibly not coping with the situation. Her need for assistance is plain. Sansa, whose pet was murdered on the word of her mother-in-law to-be after her betrothed showed a worrying tendency to violence, also dealt with the issue by blaming her sister. Sansa, however, kept the expression of her anger pretty subtle. She’s not storming out of dinner or bursting into tears, she’s just refusing to have anything to do with her sister and saying more nasty things more frequently. And so her problems go under the radar with her father.
Chapter Function
As Ned says in this chapter, “it is time to begin growing up.” Sure enough, this is the chapter where Arya starts learning the sword. This is perhaps less important for the actual skills in stabbing people as it is for what Arya starts to learn about responsibility. Her father trusts her with a real weapon and she starts to learn how to use it. It’s about seeing the world as an adult, and deciding to act as an adult. Including dealing with her own emotions, painful as they are, and the flawed people around her. Arya’s starting to learn about what’s really important.
For Ned, this chapter shows us a bit about how his backstory has affected him. And is still affecting him. For all he loves his sister, the memory of her is still so painful he barely even brings himself to speak of her. He hasn’t been able to move past that pain.
This chapter hints that Lyanna’s death was due to her more rebellious tendencies. There’s important seeding for R+L=J in this chapter, just in what we learn about the relationship between Ned and Lyanna, and Lyanna’s own character.
Finally, this chapter reminds us of Nymeria's survival, somewhere out in the Riverlands. Definitely not harassing Lannister forces as of AFFC.
Miscellany
Jeyne Poole tells Arya some pretty nasty stuff about Mycah’s fate, here. This is GRRM building up on that wish fulfilment thing. You want something horrible to happen to Jeyne because of this? You want her to get some comeuppance? GRRM will provide. He will make you choke on it.
I find it interesting that when Arya wants to say that she’s tough, she thinks that she can be as strong as Robb. Every single Starkling looked up to Robb.
Clothing Porn
Stark guardsmen wear grey wool cloaks with white satin borders, with a silver hand clasp.
Food Porn
Thick pumpkin soup and ribs in a herb and garlic crust.
Next Three Chapters
Tyrion VII, AGoT – Cersei X, AFFC – Alayne I, AFFC
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colorofmymindposts · 5 years
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The Deviance of Two English Gentlemen Chapter One
Chapter Title: A Most Troubling Domestic
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie films)/Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Mary Morstan/John Watson Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mary Morstan, John Watson, Mrs. Hudson Rating: Teen and Up  Status: Incomplete, will be updated on weekly/biweekly basis Word Count: 1520 Summary: Set post Game of Shadows. When Sherlock Holmes is given a case by none other than Mrs. Watson, he has no idea that he cannot fix the unsolvable for the couple. Intimate truths are exposed in the process, leaving all three irrevocably changed. Tags: Case Fic, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Secrets
Story: 
The signees of Spring and her benefactors were much appreciative of this day. The breeze was finally light and welcome, the sun did not deceive in her promise of warmth, and the creatures of Providence could once again roam the streets and fields without difficulty, a stride in their steps that did not exist a mere fortnight ago. Of course, with the synergy of ardour and envy, succeeded by keyed up tempers, it was the season of renewed energy towards crime of all kinds. If Sherlock Holmes were to leave his flat sometime within the next two days, he would most assuredly be met with the dastardly, delicious aftermath of criminal underworld antics. The case he was to be met with though was unlike any he would have anticipated. 
Nanny had ceased in providing him breakfasts in the morning as she had grown accustomed to his years’ absence when he was presumed dead after his nearly fatal confrontation with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Still, Holmes considered himself fortunate that she had decided not to let out the rooms of 221B to anyone else in that time. He liked to imagine that his memory had haunted the flat from any prospective renters. It was more likely that she had felt his experiments had irrevocably made the place unlivable for anyone else, which suited his purposes just as well. In the time since his return, they had stopped seeing each other altogether except for the instances in which the woman needed to collect the rent or occasionally checked to see he was still alive. Her tread on the steps and tentative opening of the door in this instance did not seem to indicate either of those options however. “A visitor is here to see you, Mr. Holmes,” Mrs. Hudson announced without a greeting. Holmes stood facing the window. The scuttling of children playing in the street could faintly be heard through the glass though he preferred their prattling to Mrs. Hudson’s. “I don’t receive visitors, only clients and Watson, so which one is it?” “Both, I’m afraid.” Thoroughly startled, Holmes spun around ungracefully. Mrs. Watson stood in the doorframe of 221B, and he realized in that exact moment she had never once stepped foot in this flat. The woman had barely put up her hair, her face did not glow with her usual choice of cosmetics, and the azure dress she wore was plain, one she normally kept in the back of her armoire. Lines shown clearly under her eyes spoke of little sleep, and her mouth was set in an expression of grim unhappiness. “You are punishing yourself,” Holmes declared, though he was still attempting to parse out the reason. Mrs. Watson stood resolute. They’d engaged in battle for far too many years now to allow some remark like that crack through her facade. “I came here for your help, Mr. Holmes, and if you won’t give it to me I’ll be forced to go to Scotland Yard.” Mrs. Hudson looked positively alarmed at the always reserved Mrs. Watson. All Holmes had to do was bark “Out, Nanny!” and the flustered woman fled faster out of his rooms and past Mrs. Watson than an abominable horse free-ranging in the countryside. He had the almost irresistible urge to pick up his pipe and light it, knowing it would offend the woman’s sensibilities. Instead, Holmes’ temper simmered in an inexplicable instance at seeing the distress evident on her features, and so he treated her with the politeness customary for a client. “Would you care to enter my humble abode, madam?” She obliged him in this regard, stepping forward several paces until reaching the center of the room. Holmes idly picked up the bow to his violin, gesturing towards the client chair. “I’d prefer to stand, thank you,” she replied primly. Holmes smirked as he set the bow down. “Is this a consultation or a confrontation?” There was a sigh of exasperation not heard but felt. “Please, Mr. Holmes, I am well aware we do not see eye to eye on many matters, all excepting one.” He pointedly avoided her gaze. “I know of none.” She entreated once more. “My husband and your friend.”
Holmes huffed indignantly. “That is the very matter that divides us, you understand.”
Mrs. Watson took a sharp inhale of breath, and he admittedly felt a certain delight at trying her patience. Although he already knew of her irritation and exhaustion, he did not expect the woman to begin to weep openly in front of him.
“Please you have to find him!” She exclaimed desperately. “I’ve no idea where he is or what state he could be in. I’ll never forgive myself if something has happened to him.”
The distraught woman broke into further hysterics, clasping her face between her hands, muffling the strangled noises she emitted with terrible frequency. Holmes gently guided her into the client chair, an action to which she gave little protest, and offered her a handkerchief stained with the least number of chemical burns. Upon taking a seat in his own armchair, he rested his chin upon steepled fingers. Panic and alarm first gripped him once he processed her claim—how long had Watson been gone, where did he go and was this action voluntary, was he in any sort of danger, or was it...Heaven forbid, too late to take action. This performance of hers wouldn’t do, not if something had befallen his dear Watson.
“Mrs. Watson, take a moment to collect yourself. I’ll never be able to find your husband through that nonsensical blubbering if that’s all you have to provide me,” he snapped. His hands trembled, and so he sought the comfort of tobacco since he could not sink into the bliss of cocaine in that moment.
She sobered a little at his clipped and irritated tone, her cries subsiding into petite sniffles. At one time, when he was more vindictive, Holmes would have likely been most amused at the pathetic picture.
Her voice still wobbled over her words. “He left yesterday evening, and there’s been no word from him since.”
“What time?” He asked as he lit his pipe.
“Around eight thirty.”
“Did he give a reason for his...sudden departure? I am certain his going was not planned.” Holmes discerned there had been a reason, but the veracity of his suspicions was crucial to his work, or at least that was the most convenient excuse.
“He was...upset,” she finally confessed after a few seconds too long.
“As I suspected. Trouble in paradise, Mrs. Watson? These domestics do tend to sort themselves out from what I’m told,” he said derisively as he took a pull from the pipe and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the room.
She shook her head vehemently. “You don’t understand, and I am sure that smoking your pipe is not helping to clear your mind either.”
Holmes was stuck between laughing and ordering the woman out of his rooms. Since his return, he never knew how to behave around the woman Watson chose. Instead he idly turned the pipe over in his hands and emptied its contents onto the floor, dragging his foot against it for good measure.
“I thought—”
Brusquely, he cut her off, though this was not the sensible thing to do. “What?”
“I thought he might have...come here, to Baker Street.”
Holmes stiffened in his chair. Of course, that’s what Watson should have done, what Holmes would have wanted him to do. It came as a surprise to him that Mrs. Watson would concur.
“As you can see, madam, he has not retreated from domesticity within these rooms.”
“But you’ll find him nonetheless,” she insisted, certain already.
“I’ve already a few ideas where the old boy has gotten off to,” he reassured her as he disposed of his tattered dressing gown in favor of a jacket. “Watson is a great many things but being creative while inebriated is not one of them.”
Mrs. Watson rebutted him firmly. “John is not a drunk.”
“But any man can indulge himself too much when upset,” he contested, using her words. “I hope for both your sakes’ he has warned you he’s a reckless gambler when he drinks. Do you have his cheque book?
The woman looked down in lieu of a response.
“I see,” he said, unimpressed. The first time Watson had willingly lost his portion of the rent to complete strangers around a table, Holmes had begun hiding the man’s money (Watson had agreed begrudgingly when provided the clear evidence that this was the only way to ensure his half of the rent was paid) and would distribute it when he knew Watson would not blow it on the lure of dice and cards. At the very least, Watson was sensible enough not to bet on the horses.  
“A man’s money is not supposed to be his wife’s business,” she replied in a resigned manner.
“How utterly absurd.” With that, Holmes leapt from his chair and started in a rush towards his door, calling out behind him, “I’ll tell him that myself!”  
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your-dietician · 2 years
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Giving Birth During the Pandemic, Calif. Wildfire Evacuation
New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/giving-birth-during-the-pandemic-calif-wildfire-evacuation/
Giving Birth During the Pandemic, Calif. Wildfire Evacuation
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Illustration: by Lucy Jones
Smoke plumes over the parched hillside as we load up our two cars for our first wildfire evacuation: passports and a few bags, one neurotic pit bull and six very disgruntled barn cats. At the last minute, we toss in some baby essentials (car seat, co-sleeper) — but surely, surely we’ll be back home before we need them. Nearby, two wild turkeys peck at the new fire break, unperturbed by the human frenzy, the gathering of domestic animals, the churning of fields.
It’s August 2020. And I am 36 weeks pregnant.
A week earlier, we’d been counting our blessings — the sort of feel-good California nonsense that ran contrary to every fiber of my jaded New Yorker soul. But on that deceptively bright afternoon, I’d indulged. First on the list was our home: my husband’s family ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains where we’d moved from Brooklyn three years before.
Like so many “classic” journeys West, ours had begun in a quixotic vein. On paper, it was a job offer for my then-boyfriend, now-husband, but the impulse ran deeper than that. We were both fed up with New York for the reasons 30-something artists often are: a growing disillusionment with our respective industries; the churn of yuppification driving our friends from the neighborhoods they themselves had gentrified not long ago; the pervasive sense that there’s always someone younger than you dying to do the same thing for less. And so, we wanted to embark on a new adventure together, something utterly different — and what could be more different than trading cramped city living for bucolic rolling hills? The ranch itself held an almost mythic status for my husband. It was the childhood kingdom where he once visited his uncle and grandmother and played out his Tolkien fantasies; the steady rock of home after his parents got divorced.
But, it turns out, we’d come to California in the end times. The apocalypse grew starker the farther west we drove. When we passed through Montana, the big sky clogged with smoke as fields burned alongside the highway. As we wound down the Oregon coast, the heat sizzled. We reached the ranch on the hottest day in San Francisco history. We drove down to the beach to escape the heat—only to find a small brush fire blocking our path. The Bay Area of my husband’s childhood was in its death throes. Destroyed by tech bros and venture capitalists and, most irrevocably, by climate change. Since our arrival, the Golden State has seen its population decline for the first time on record.
Living out in all that damn nature — a 25-minute drive from just about anything — felt claustrophobic. I missed home. I yearned to hop on the subway. Trade gossip with the self-proclaimed mayor of my block. Stumble home and stop, shame-faced, at the corner bodega for a bag of expired Goldfish crackers. Engage with that pulsing, beating, bleating hum of humanity that is New York City.
But there’s nothing like a global pandemic to make you see the value of wide-open spaces. To find the beauty in sunburnt grasses. To see the hills dotted with live oaks not as yellow but as gold. To watch the fog unfurl like dragon smoke and think — this, perhaps this can be enough.
The second blessing we’d been fool enough to name was my “easy” pregnancy. I’d been 15 weeks pregnant when COVID-19 shut down the state. My in-person appointments migrated to video. I purchased a scale and a blood-pressure cuff; I dutifully reported the results every month. By and large, I felt pretty good. Healthy. But this fiction, too, was about to go up in flames. The temperatures soared, the barn cats’ fur crackled, my feet ballooned.
The morning of our evacuation, I have my first in-person OB/GYN appointment in months. By this point, I’m accustomed to the realities of a pandemic pregnancy. The strange disconnect when I talk to anyone who gave birth before COVID-19, who never worried if their partner would be allowed into the delivery room, or Googled “will the hospital separate me from my newborn if I test positive for COVID?” In the empty waiting room, the “don’t sit here” printouts have vanished along with the chairs that accompanied them. The pandemic has dragged on for five months, and the furniture has adjusted itself accordingly.
The doctor gives me bad news — the baby is in breech. The hard, round protrusion jutting beneath my rib cage is, indeed, the baby’s head, not his rump as I’ve been trying to convince myself for weeks. We schedule a version— a procedure where a doctor tries to turn the baby right-side down — for the following Friday.
Who was I to think that my body wouldn’t betray me?
There’s something else, too. My blood pressure clocks in at 151 over 97. The chatty nurse grows quiet. She looks at me, then back at the reading. She asks if I was rushing to get here. If I suffer from white-coat syndrome. With the cocky self-assurance of a person young enough and lucky enough to believe that their body won’t betray them, I tell the nurse I’m stressed. We’re under evacuation warning. By the time she straps the cuff back on after the appointment, my blood pressure has returned to normal.
Preeclampsia, the dangerous and maddeningly enigmatic condition that my high blood pressure augurs, has plagued (wo)mankind since the dawn of history. Back in the fifth century B.C.E., Hippocrates blamed it, along with so many other lady ailments, on the wandering womb. In the intervening two and a half millennia, doctors haven’t figured out the cause. The prevailing theory is that the problem starts in the placenta, the organ that nurtures the fetus in the womb: In women with preeclampsia, the blood vessels that form to deliver oxygen to the placenta are too narrow. In its efforts to feed the growing baby, the body kicks into overdrive. Your blood pressure skyrockets; your kidneys falter; your liver might fail. In the worst cases, the “pre” vanishes and you “progress” to eclampsia — seizures which can be deadly to both mom and baby.
Preeclampsia is characterized by a list of associations that often border on patient-shaming: risk factors include poor diet, obesity, diabetes, and chronic hypertension. For complex reasons that likely involve structural racism, unconscious bias, and biological weathering, Black women in America develop and die from preeclampsia at significantly higher rates than white women do.
Returning, then, to my certainty that I am perfectly well, high blood pressure or no, thankyouverymuch. We could call it denial. We could also call it a particular cocktail of white, able-bodied, and socioeconomic privilege. After all, none of those risk factors applied to me.
Days later, as another nurse lines my hospital bed with bumper pads to protect me in case of seizure, I’ll wonder at my arrogance. Just two years earlier, my older sister dropped dead at 35. Who was I to think that my body wouldn’t betray me?
Almost exactly nine months after we first arrived in California, my sister Julia died, both suddenly and predictably. She was 35 and, by most outward metrics, in good health. But, as hard as she fought, she’d been gripped by both depression and alcoholism for over a decade.
In the months after Julia dies, wildfires flame up and down the state. Eight-five people perish as Paradise is razed to the ground. I try to work on my new novel, a cli-fi dystopia that offers little escape. I spend a lot of time sitting in a large wooden crate, socializing a litter of barn kittens. Sometimes, I meet Julia’s college roommate, Casey, in San Francisco. We go to coffee shops that are both like and unlike the ones I missed in Brooklyn. Places where using the bathroom requires an app and a QR code. The world is literally on fire, and this is what Silicon Valley innovation has to offer: the monetization of what should be public goods. Over burritos and tears, Casey tells me stories about her toddler son. Funny words that he’d string together, and how when she says they can’t go outside, he knows to respond: “Too smoky?”
The decision to have children has always struck me as an essentially selfish one: You choose, out of a desire for fulfillment or self-betterment or curiosity or boredom or baby-mania or peer pressure, to bring a new human into this world. And it has never seemed more selfish than today. From a global perspective, having a child in a developed nation is among the most environmentally unsound decisions you can make — a baby born in the United States adds another 58.6 tons of carbon to the atmosphere per year. (That wipes out the net positives of my 25 years of vegetarianism in roughly three months). On the individual level, as fires rage and hurricanes form, as water grows scarce and fields lie fallow, it’s hard not to wonder: What kind of future can we offer a child?
And yet. On some level we still believe that a baby, our baby, will bring the world, our world, so much more than his carbon footprint. On another, we believe, like so many before us, that a baby can be the only balm after a loss. That it will transform me from a bereaved sister to something new and alien: a mother.
The day we evacuate, in that now-annual tradition among Western states, Gavin Newsom declares a state of emergency. The fire that we’re fleeing is the smaller of two mammoth blazes threatening the state. A CalFire spokeswoman on TV advises that all citizens should be “ready to go” in case of wildfires. “Residents have to have their bags packed up with your nose facing out your driveway so you can leave quickly.”
We joke about how absurd it is that every single Californian should be living in a perpetual state of emergency preparedness. It isn’t funny.
The truth is that we’re the lucky ones. We won’t be sleeping in our cars outside Half Moon Bay High School, hoping that the Red Cross can find us a hotel room. We have a safe place to go that will accept us and our veritable menagerie in the middle of a pandemic. My in-laws live an hour’s drive away. And for once we’re grateful they’re on the far side of Santa Cruz.
On the individual level, as fires rage and hurricanes form, as water grows scarce and fields lie fallow, it’s hard not to wonder: What kind of future can we offer a child?
So we settle into our cushy evacuation digs. I check Twitter for updates on the fire lines. I lie upside down on a propped-up ironing board to encourage the baby to flip. I dutifully record my blood pressure twice a day. When I go into a local lab on Monday, I pass a woman around my age. Her hair mussed; her clothes rumpled. I overhear her tell the security guard that she is evacuated from Boulder Creek. Her house has already burned down.
The call comes late that afternoon. We’ve gone for a walk on the beach to distract ourselves. A brisk ocean breeze keeps the smoke at bay.
The OB tells me that I need to go to the hospital in two days and that I should be prepared to deliver. Depending on whether they can flip the baby, they will either induce labor or perform a C-section.
I press my hand against my stomach, cupping what I now know is my son’s head. I dig my heels into the sand. I know with every fiber of my being that this child is not ready to be born. He has literally put his foot down. Wildfire evacuations? Smoke-clogged skies over the Bay? A global pandemic? Nah, thanks, Ma. I’ll stay inside.
Something primal stirs. A desperate need to protect this child — from the world, from the climate, from the overreach of litigation-fearing American doctors. This baby, I am convinced, does not want to come out. He needs a few more weeks inside. My lab work hasn’t even come back yet. Two high blood pressure readings? From a person evacuated from wildfires during a pandemic? And I feel fine.
So, for the first time in my life, I argue with a doctor, first patiently, then furiously. I tell her that I cannot possibly give birth in two days. That we’re evacuated. That we might not have a home to return to. That, as freelancers, we both lost a lot of work during the pandemic. That my husband, whose industry has been completely upended, has an enormous gig with a new client. That I can’t imagine waiting until Friday can make any difference. The doctor takes out the cudgel: “You need to stop worrying about money and start worrying about your baby.”
It is the first time anyone has pulled the “bad mother” card on me, though I’m sure it won’t be the last. I sputter. I am livid. I tell her we’ll be there.
Things at the hospital go well until they don’t. The baby flips; the cheerful dry-erase board is decorated with a beaming sun, the names of the on-duty nurse and physician, and the words “Preeclampsia: Mild.” The next morning, my blood pressure soars, and “mild” is replaced with “severe.” The blood-pressure cuff is now accompanied by a catheter and an IV that pumps me up with magnesium to reduce the risk of seizure. The bumper pads are up now, too.
The hospital, the beeping machines monitoring my vital signs, the proliferating IVs, it all reminds me too much of Julia. The three days I sat at her hospital bed — holding her hand, reading Redwall to her, so sure that she could hear me, that the stories we shared in childhood might somehow draw her back. So sure that she would pull out of her coma, that one day we would make macabre jokes about her hospital stay. That she wouldn’t die. That our story couldn’t end that way.
But here, in this hospital, the wool has lifted from my eyes. I now know how these stories end. And I am sure that one of us isn’t going to survive. It takes the last bit of my resolve not to tell my husband, in a fit of melodrama, to save the baby if the doctors have to choose. (In later, clearer moments, I realize that medicine doesn’t work that way. But in the throes of magnesium-laced labor, the brain latches to the cinematic.)
So much of what could go wrong does: The baby crowns but every time I push his heart rate drops. We try three more times with a suction cup fused to his head, the pediatrician’s eyes glued to the heart monitor, periodically shouting for me to stop pushing so a nurse can press the baby back inside and massage his heart rate up again. At some point, a switch is flipped, alarms blare: an emergency C-section. I’m rushed down the corridors amid flashing lights to the operating table. My husband abandoned in a delivery room awash in blood. Someone shouts back, “We’ll come back for you if we can.”
My son is wrenched from my seizing uterus — weak from the magnesium and letting out only the smallest cry. He is rushed to the NICU for oxygen and observation. But he lives. We live. And, in the end, we get to go home.
The night that Jude is born, our evacuation order is lifted. The fires that burn parts of Bonny Doon and Boulder Creek never reach the ranch. We are so very lucky. Even though I doubt that luck can last.
Although that future still terrifies me and part of me wants to disengage, to say “Let it burn” and “Fuck you” to all that, I can’t. I don’t have that luxury.
After the dust has settled, my father — my somehow still optimistic, boomer father — keeps talking about how crazy it will be for Jude to learn about the day he was born, in a pandemic while evacuated for wildfires. And all I can think is how much I wish Jude might grow up in a world where the summer of 2020 sounds aberrational. I suspect he won’t. As I write this, fires descend on Lake Tahoe, defying all efforts of containment, and Hurricane Ida has devastated the Gulf Coast. Headlines blare about “extreme” weather, and I wonder when the newspapers will lose the word “extreme.”
I know that the world in which Jude grows up will be plagued by more and more environmental disasters. That cataclysmic changes to the climate will exacerbate the other inequities we face as a nation and a planet. That we are living in a real way on borrowed time, under the shadow of carbon that’s already been released as more fossil fuel continues to burn and burn and burn.
Although that future still terrifies me and part of me wants to disengage, to say “Let it burn” and “Fuck you” to all that, I can’t. I don’t have that luxury. I have no choice but to believe that the future — troubled as it will be, stripped as it will be of my biting, brilliant sister — is still worth living in and fighting for. To believe not just in destruction, not just in accruing loss after loss after loss, but in counting blessings. Finding those small moments of joy. The smile on Jude’s face as he bashes his mouth into my cheek. “Boop,” I say as I tap his nose. The same sound Julia used to make when I tapped hers.
This isn’t the ending that I’m looking for. And it isn’t just an ending either. It’s a beginning, too. An often frightening one. And, for now, that has to be good enough.
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Hi Lizbob! 💕💕 This is more meta wank than anything else: but I was wondering if you think there's any significant reason why both Dean and Cas comment on the water pressure in the bunker? Dean first in 8x13 and Cas says it (I think) in 9x03. Do you think it's a parallel of some kind? Or reflecting on Cas' humanity? All the best!!! 💕
Heya :D
Oh gosh this is one of the older posts on my blog:
https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/94289820218/awkward-fallen-angel-alovelikecas
It’s still hilarious. :D
I think the humanity thing is probably the ~reason~ for it. I was thinking about this in the car today while driving around staring at various mountains in Scotland (I can multitask, shhh… There was a farm belonging to the MacLeod’s so my brain kinda went wandering from Vacation Mode and got here somehow)… Mostly about how for example you always get something like Regarding Dean, at least these days you can pretty reliably expect weird concept stuff to hit Dean and for him to be the one having stuff happening to him, while I guess Sam stuff is about Sam - he dealt with Magda, and the girl in the next episode, as mirrors to his story, and just emotionally reacted to these stories with his own experiences… Dean tends to have ridiculous effects and things hit him… Stuff as far back as Skin where it was him who was shapeshiftered, or like, I don’t know, the episode where he was aged up to an old man or whatever. I guess because Sam had the big myth arc stuff about him, the stuff exploring the sense of transformation and body horror and inner darkness and consent violation etc etc that can slap them on the MotW circuit is already happening to him on a grand scale; Dean as the emotional POV to Sam’s big mytharc has similar things happen to him on a smaller scale where we explore him differently… And that’s a sort of older thing, because Dean was in the focus over the last few years and it’s only this year he’s shifting back to being JUST the emotional POV… 
but anyway, all these little characterisation details seem to hit him - with him being the focus in random moments about domesticity and home and so on. I think going all the way back to how Sam was introduced as the one who’d had a bit of normal life and seemed to have a better understanding and comprehension as it. He might have been raised a hunter as well, but he was still closer to being understandable to the audience because he had lived as a muggle even for a few years. Dean’s never been settled and never had home like that, so anything that makes a deal out of that is automatically more interesting to go to him, just because from a writing POV he’s the most complex mentality to approach from the standing start. Sam craved normality and Dean seemed to have rejected it, always, in his early seasons characterisation. It automatically makes his inner world and desires more fascinating, while Sam initially seems to just want the white picket fence/revenge, Dean has a sort of inside view on hunting and the job, so is aligned much more with the world/mindset of Supernatural. 
Again, something they quickly move away from because Sam starts that slide from 1x22 and in 2x02 it’s clear the writers literally swapped their motivations/relationship to the job etc and while I think they drift back to their original spaces, they’re always more complex about their stances after season 2. And of course Sam picking up the powers and demon blood arc gives him an additional thing in his inner landscape which ties him to the supernatural even if it’s again something pushed on him and disrupting/forcing him away from the normal life (and that’s the big emotional reveal in 5x22 - that Lucifer would never let him have the normal life and he’s been surrounded by demons the whole time, so that’s the conclusion of a 5 year arc >.>)
… Could probably keep talking about that for much longer but I’ve been having a hell of a time concentrating and lost the thread 100 times trying to write this in a room with people talking loudly non-stop so I think I was originally aiming at pointing out how Cas as an outsider coming to terms with humanity or just in a wider sense than season 9 being curious and drawn to it and it forming a sort of magnet pull to his story and of course starting from the position of being probably the most utterly inhuman thing they’d met at that point (it’s not until much later, like, Eve or Leviathan, we start meeting other monsters that are implied never to have been human in the same way angels are, while monsters and demons are always human in origin)… Dean’s got the similar path towards domesticity and “normal” things; in the early seasons stuff like Bugs showing him appreciating the hell out of the power shower in the fancy show homes, for example, is teasing the idea of Dean interacting with a normal life AS an outsider in honestly a lot of the same way as Cas. 
I think basically they’re both outsiders/not part of the ~normal~ social order while Sam’s lived there and been there done that as well as has a somehow more normal outlook, as well as doing little things like all the many sources of meta commenting on how Sam eating salads is rejecting the specific structures of hunter social life - diner food and fast food are part of their world and Dean and then Cas are heavily linked to things like burgers or gas station food. 
So I think it’s a whole mix of things like Dean is often the one being emotionally explored anyway because he gets the little stories about him, and his emotional day to day nonsense is often on screen far more than Sam’s, honestly maybe just because he TALKS more even if it’s grumbling about stuff or mouthing off about things or just keeping up a commentary. Sam’s much more the strong and silent type so not likely to venture opinions on food and comfort and whatever, and generally tries to get through their life without touching the sides, while Dean will happily steal from mini bars or use the magic fingers or comment on the porn selection in a motel room and so on and so on. Which all goes to exclude Sam from ever being included in having an opinion on showers or even being likely to bring them up, because though we’ve known for years he became a fancy shampoo guy somewhere around season 6/7 (when his hair became long and glossy rather than just shaggy or fluffy) he’s literally never ever bitched about the conditions on the road that would make his personal grooming a hassle - I mean if anyone would ever have 1001 horror stories about tiny cramped motel showers you couldn’t turn around in and bumped your head on the ceiling… But nah he’s silent on it and Dean gets to have multiple incidents of musing on showering philosophically or indulgently, and we’re just generally in his head more and following him around on the nitty gritty stuff that episodes focused on his immediate shit would turn up (for example Yellow Fever letting him have an epic rant about the quality of life when hunting)… And then Cas follows similar GROUND even if he’s obviously coming at it from totally different directions, learning humanity and so on…
The fact they BOTH comment on the water pressure could then JUST be because that’s how they’re both written, as almost entirely separate thing (until you get back to a root cause and that Cas is mostly a Dean mirror if you have to be crude about his role in the narrative aside from being his own character)… 
On the other hand the “shower sex is complicated” thing is one of the funniest TV conspiracies I’d read at that point in my life, being still a baby to the fandom and not jaded by the daily nonsense that produces… :P 
I mean the fact it’s such a direct repeat of what Dean said, when Cas brings it up, does make it a point of comparison - that they both find a sense of home and comfort at the Bunker, and in both cases it seems like, in a way that they’ve never experienced before. For both of them, the Bunker seems like an ideal happy endgame place to live, and letting human!Cas try out the plumbing seems a great way to give him a real desire and something to tease HIM about it never mind us… That the Bunker is a real promised land of comfort and of course a place he could settle. So it does ACTUALLY tie them together in not crazy conspiracy ways :P 
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When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country. My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred - an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper - Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. "My children," she said, "my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world." She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever - that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized. My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled. She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal. She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget. The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word "Farewell!" It was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there - my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure - I was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were "old familiar faces," but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent. I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased. The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chance - or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's door - led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. "Have you," he said, "really spent your time in studying such nonsense?" I replied in the affirmative. "Every minute," continued M. Krempe with warmth, "every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew." So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted. I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town. Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: "The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows." Such were the professor's words - rather let me say such the words of the fate - enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein - more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning's dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight's thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public, for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor. He heard with attention the little narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said that "These were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind." I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure. "I am happy," said M. Waldman, "to have gained a disciple; and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics." He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I took my leave. Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.
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